


no place for beginners or sensitive hearts

by dryandsweet



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Berena Secret Santa, Berena Secret Santa 2018, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Workplace Relationship, a lesbian disaster and a bisexual disaster walk into a hospital, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-09-24 09:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dryandsweet/pseuds/dryandsweet
Summary: There’s a woman at Bernie’s new hospital with a reputation for getting anybody she wants and she’s decided she wants Bernie. That woman is Serena Campbell and Bernie has no intention of making the chase easy on her. Unbeknownst to Bernie, that knife will cut both ways.





	no place for beginners or sensitive hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kooili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kooili/gifts).



> For Berena Secret 2018 for Kooili who asked for ‘ships passing in the night’ with a dash of thwarted Casanova Serena Campbell. Apologies for my lateness! I hope this is even remotely what you were hoping for.
> 
> Title borrowed with love from the song "[Smooth Operator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYv2PhG89A&ab_channel=SadeVEVO)" by Sade.
> 
> Revised 1.16.19 - Originally posted 12.29.18

 

_There’s something about you, something so wonderfully wicked and terribly sexy. The very mention of your name arouses me._

\--Michael Faudet

* * *

 

Bernie was five minutes into an indecently pleasurable flirt with an attractive woman in a flowing blouse when it occurred to her— _oh, you’re_ that _Serena Campbell._

“Could I take you out sometime? Coffee, drinks…breakfast maybe?” asked the woman who had joined her on the lift at Pulses after they had exchanged hellos.

“You’re sure of yourself.” She had form in winning over perfect strangers. Bernie had been about to suggest after work drinks herself.

“I don’t believe in going through life half-cocked. I like to leave that to my esteemed colleagues, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Self.” Her playful wink elicited a laugh from Bernie. The Holby deputy CEO was the soul of cheek. To look at her was to know she was hatching a plot to win a smile from her quarry. Today, she had chosen Bernie and she had already earned her prize twice.

“I’ve heard all about you. You’ve got a reputation around Holby as a bit of a heartbreaker.” A rolling stone who gathered no moss but plenty of phone numbers in her little black book.

“This is the first I’m hearing of it.” The ensuing pause was judgment itself.  Serena let out a huff, rolling her eyes. “No, really. I’m…social. I like to think of myself as the friendly type.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“All friendships are beneficial in their own way, Bernie. May I call you Bernie?”

“Everyone else does.”

“Right.  Well, I think all friendships confer some benefit. It’s only a matter of figuring out how.”

“Have you figured out how you’d like to benefit from me?” Serena stepped into Bernie’s personal space where their respective body heats could mingle and Bernie could easily spot the laugh lines etched around her eyes.  She was lovelier for having lived a life of laughter. In a single five-minute conversation she managed to make Bernie laugh too.

“Bernie, I knew from the moment I saw you.”

Bernie looked askance, her mouth suddenly dry. “You should know Jac Naylor warned me about you.”  
  
Serena threw back her head.  “You flirt with one beautiful redhead on your first day on the job and you gain a reputation.”  
  
Bernie leveled her with a flat stare.  
  
“Yes, all right, I was trying it on, but she wasn't interested.  Generally good-natured banter is the extent of it. I'm simply not the sort of woman who'd turn Jac's head. Alas, I hear she prefers her brunettes blue-eyed, or male. I don't fit her bill.”

“What makes you think you fit mine?”  Serena needn’t know Bernie’s Achilles’ heel was spirited brunettes with husky voices bearing an indefinable spark.

 “Call it a hunch, or wishful thinking.”  Serena drew nearer, an elegant hand aloft.  “May I? It’s just your hair…” Bernie assented.  Serena swept an errant lock of wavy blonde hair out of Bernie’s eyes behind her ear, gingerly skimming her earlobe as she did. Bernie sucked in a deep breath. A cacophony kicked off in her chest. Serena’s hand was cool, her touch tender as the look in her eyes. “There you are. Gorgeous.  I can't wait to get to know you better.”  
  
“Me, too.” Bernie raised her coffee between them to defuse the tension. To turn Serena’s focus from the blush glowing in her cheeks. “I’m due in theater in a few minutes. I should head back.” Serena lowered her hand.  Bernie swore she could still feel her.

“I won’t keep you.”

“I’ll see you around?”

“Not if I see you first.”

Serena exited the lift car with a wink, and Bernie's coffee went cold waiting on her to drink up.  She missed her stop on Keller staring at the doors as others got off and on. Her skin felt too tight. She was stifling hot and all aflutter. It was a good job she wasn’t actually due in theater for half an hour. She wouldn’t trust herself with a scalpel in this state.

Dating a colleague would be a poor start to her time at Holby City Hospital and a poor first impression to make on her new workmates. Fraternization was frowned upon in the army, which had done nothing to stop Bernie and Alex falling together, and it was frowned upon in civilian circles. Everyone recognized workplace romance for the unnecessary complication it was. Just because others did it at Holby didn't mean Bernie had to. Forget Serena's gentle, expressive hands and her twinkling eyes. Forget her inviting collarbones and her dimpled chin, her smiling lips. Serena Campbell was a taskmaster of the highest order in the boardroom and a mischief maker in the bedroom.  Or so the rumor mill claimed.  Bernie had returned to Holby City to work and to rebuild her faltering relationship with her kids. Nobody, least of all Serena Campbell, was going to divert her from her primary end goals for little more than a fling.

She almost believed herself.

*

Bernie learned in the weeks following their first meeting that Serena came by her amorous reputation through sheer, undaunted merit. Flirtation was Serena Campbell's native tongue and she was an unsparing tutor. Everyone got a wink and smile from Serena once in a while. It was part of the Holby experience. Bernie berated herself for being disappointed she wasn’t anything special.

Between egregiously long electives, Bernie microwaved a ready meal she'd brought from home for an especially late lunch in the general surgery break room.  So focused was she on her revolving plastic dish of chicken fried steak she didn’t feel the presence of another person till their breath disturbed the fine hair on the back of her neck. She whirled, fists up, and only just avoided sucker punching Serena in her lovely face.

Bernie blanched. “Oh god, Serena, I’m so sorry.”

Serena gently redirected her hands to a safer position. “Sorry, thought you heard me come in. I made a fair amount of noise.”

Bernie was mortified. “No, it's…it’s all right. No harm done.” She hid her hands behind her, clutched the edged of counter to hold herself up.  She needed to sleep more; this wasn’t Afghanistan anymore. “What brings you up to Keller?”

“Ric Griffin's prize gourmet coffee stash.” Bernie hadn’t known he had one. Stood to reason, though; he seemed a bit too happy when he drank his first cup of the day compared to the rest of them who knocked them back to avoid the taste.

Bracing herself on the counter next to Bernie's hip, Serena reached past her to access one of cupboards overhead. Their shoulders brushed. Bernie stood stock still, not trusting herself to move any direction but closer to Serena and her tantalizing heat. _Serena’s like this with everyone._ Serena rocked onto her toes and rifled around some more. Her breasts brushed Bernie’s shoulder. Should Bernie turn her head, her lips would graze….She didn’t move.  _She’s like this with everyone._

“Aha!”

Bernie jumped, as did her pulse.  Serena’s hand came down on her shoulder, gentling her.  It slid down Bernie’s arm to her forearm and the rest of Serena’s body followed till she stood flatfooted once more in front of Bernie.

 “The motor oil Fletch brews on AAU is disgraceful, and I know Ric hoards all the best stuff up here.”  A small vacuum sealed bag in hand, she leaned in, a wicked gleam in her eye. Bernie’s gaffe was already forgotten. “So I came to help myself.” She glanced fleetingly down at Bernie's mouth. “You won't tell, will you?” 

Bernie shook her head. Her lips seemed unable to form words of a sudden.

Serena's cheeks indented in a grin.  Bernie's fingers curled at her side, tense with a desire to trace the laugh lines bracketing her generous mouth. She wondered if everyone Serena flirted with felt like this.

“All right?” Serena rubbed circles into the delicate skin inside Bernie’s elbow.

Bernie nodded. The microwave binged. Her unsatisfying rush lunch was ready to be consumed.

Serena continued her slow glide down Bernie’s arm to grasp her wrist. There was kindness in her eyes and sweetness as well. A hint of genuine concern.  Bernie’s heart slowed. It was easier to breathe. This wasn’t flirtation, or not _only_ flirtation; this was compassion.

“Thanks, Bernie. I owe you one.”

Serena made off with her stolen loot, to Ric’s later exasperation, and a sliver of Bernie's genuine affection. Damn her.  

*

“A little birdie told me I could find you out here.” Bernie took the Pulses coffee Serena handed her on autopilot as Serena joined her on the bench where she came to think. She’d come out here plenty since taking up at Holby. She had plenty to think about.

“Was that little birdie named Copeland by any chance?”

“I’m not one to reveal my sources.”

“Did he tell you to chat me up as well?”

“I didn’t need instructions for that.”  They drank in slightly stilted silence.  “Why are you so opposed to the idea I might be chatting you up?”

“I hardly know you.”

“I’ve tried to remedy that, not that you’ve given me much opportunity.” Serena had invited Bernie for coffee on multiple occasions.  Bernie was out of logical reasons to refuse, except her vow to herself. No workplace romances. No Romeos. Absolutely no Serena.

“I know your type and I’m not interested in being yet another notch on Serena Campbell’s infamous bedpost.”

“I see.”  Serena drank the remainder of her coffee. “Has it occurred to you at all that I wasn’t merely offering a tour of my ‘infamous’ boudoir? I was offering you friendship. Female senior consultants aren’t exactly thick on the ground, are they?”

“So you weren’t hitting on me?” Bernie face grew hot as mortification coursed through her.

“I definitely was. I hit on everyone, only sometimes with intent to follow through if it’s welcome; that’s just my nature.  But I am interested in being your friend, if you’ll have me.”

“Just friends?”

“I won’t even bat my eyelashes if it makes you feel better.”

“No need to go to extremes.”  Bernie raised her coffee in a one-sided toast.  “To friends.”

“As a gesture of friendship, I’m going to tell you something about myself and hope you’ll reciprocate. I'm divorced. One child, a daughter, Elinor. I have a nephew, Jason. You've met him. I head up AAU."  
  
“I've filled in on your ward.”  
  
“I heard. A shame I was away at a conference that week. I'd have loved to have you in theater.”  
  
“Only in theater?” Bernie closed her mouth abruptly. She hadn’t meant for that to slip out.  
  
“If that's the only space available, I'm adaptable.” Serena smirked.  She was aware she’d wiggled under Bernie’s skin. Bernie slurped noisily as if to blot out her previous faux pas.  
  
“You being adaptable doesn't surprise me.”  
  
“What would?”  
  
“An original chat-up line.”

“Ouch. That'll leave a mark.”

“Sorry.” She stuffed her hand into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. She was always cold these days. “Do you date many women?” Outside of Alex, Bernie hadn’t many female friends who openly dated women.

“Oh yes, every chance to I get. There are plenty more women I’d like to date these days than men. I like to think I’m making up for lost time. You?”

“Not many yet. I’m still working my way around to the dating scene.” She had years of ignoring her attractions to work through, or so her therapist said. She thought Serena was living proof of her progress.

“If you’d ever like some pointers, Fleur knows all the best places to meet people.” Another name Bernie had heard but couldn’t yet connect to a face.

“I might take you and her up on that. It would be nice not to go home to an empty apartment all the time.”

“I feel the same way.” Serena put her cup aside and laced her hands together over her crossed legs. “You know, I’ve been out since my daughter went to university. I realized there were numerous ways for me to be happy; the only person stopping me was me.”  Bernie’s could name five for herself and she was only number four.

“Was that difficult for you?”

“My mother was…not as supportive as I would have liked at the time. But nothing I did satisfied her and realizing that allowed me to do what I wanted instead of what she’d have me do.  She died a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Bernie’s parents weren’t deceased but they were gone from her life just the same.

“So am I. We never talked about it, in the end. We sidestepped it. I didn’t want to spend the last days we had together fighting about something I wouldn’t change if I could.”

Bernie dug her heels into the gravel pathway.

“I realized I was a lesbian twenty-five years into my marriage. All it took was a kiss from a colleague, a friend and everything clicked. And then it all fell apart.”

“I can only imagine.” She patted Bernie’s knee, brisk and friendly.  “You seem to have come through it.”

“I didn’t have any choice. It was survive or break and I don’t break easily.”

“No, you don’t.” Serena regarded her coolly but kindly. “Something tells me you’re going to turn Holby City Hospital on its head before you’re through here. I, for one, can’t wait to see you do it.”

*

“So you're the one Serena took a shine to?” Jac Naylor had asked over the open chest cavity of a 63-year-old patient on the verge of dying from heart failure. It was one of the only surgeries they’d complete together without coming near to blows. Too many chefs in the kitchen tended to spoil the meal, or some less mortifying analogy for what too much ego and know-how in one theater could do.  
  
“Sorry, I'm not sure I follow.” Bernie hadn’t met Serena at that point, knew her more by her publication credits and professional title than any firsthand contact. It was clear there was no love lost between Serena and Jac.  
  
“Serena Campbell, deputy CEO. She likes cheekbones, and she hasn't stopped talking about you since you were hired on.” If Bernie weren't mistaken, Jac's prominent bone structure was a testament to Serena's tastes. “Nice to see leopards don’t change their spots.”  
  
“Okay.” She was at a loss for what to do with this information.  
  
“She's a handful, is all I'm saying. If you're not up for it, get out of it before your working relationship takes a beating. We don't need any more scandals, and I'm not wasting another workday in sexual harassment training because my so-called peers can't keep it in their trousers. It's hard enough to get grant funding here as it is.”  
  
“Acknowledged. Quick question: what exactly went on in this hospital before I got here?”  
  
“Ask your new friend, Dr. Copeland. You can be sure he’ll know all about it.”

Bernie had asked around after Serena first, but nothing had prepared her for meeting her face to face. Landing in the spotlight of Serena’s laser-like focus on that windy day in March had been the end of her, and the beginning of _them_.

*

Bernie was on her way to another meeting with Marcus, their solicitors, and the divorce mediator when she caught Serena swearing down the phone at someone about her smoking vehicle in the car park. The conversation wasn’t going well. Bernie closed out the text she’d been about to send saying she’d be arriving soon.

“Engine been growling or whining?”

Serena shut off her phone after her call recipient had already hung up on her. How his head would roll…  
  
“Hello, stranger. Come to help a poor, defenseless surgeon out of a bind?”

“Find me a poor, defenseless surgeon and I’ll try my hand it.”

“Nice save.”

Bernie joined her at the coalface and swatted away the faint plume of grey smoke exuding from her car.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” She indicated her open bonnet.  “Be my guest.”

Bernie sat her bag on the ground and carefully began going through the automotive health check list she’d learned in the army. Oil. Spark plugs. Battery. Transmission.

“How did I predict you’d know your way around an undercarriage?”

“Lucky for you, I picked up a tip or two from the motor pool at Camp Bastion. The gearheads were a chatty bunch, always catching their fingers someplace dangerous and eager to tell about it.”

Bernie did this and that till she discovered the source of the trouble.  Lucky for her, the trouble with Serena's engine was in Bernie's wheelhouse and wasn't anything requiring more than the basic tools Bernie carried in her boot for car maintenance. Twenty minutes later, she wiped engine grease off her hands onto an old bandana from her gym bag.

“That should get you home in one piece, but you'll want your regular mechanic to give her a proper look-see sooner rather than later. You might have a costly problem on your hands, otherwise.”

“You’re a life saver.” Serena sighed and then brightened.  “Coffee?”

“I’m due to meet my ex and our solicitors with a mediator”—Bernie checked her watch—“ten minutes ago, but another time?”

“You’re harder to pin down than my personal accountant. But yes, next time.” She squeezed Bernie’s shoulder.  “Good luck, soldier.”

“Thanks, I'm going to need it.”

Marcus had sent her four texts in the last twenty minutes. He sent three more before she reached the mediator’s office. Bernie opened none of them. She wanted this over with.

*

Bernie was in somewhat brighter spirits the next time they crossed paths.

There was a medical conference in town being hosted at a hotel near St. James and most of the wards were spread thin with consultants trading favors to attend. Bernie had been invited but had declined when she saw her soon-to-be ex-husband on the confirmed speakers list. She’d won a fan in Ric Griffin by letting him go in her place. She’d keep Keller afloat whilst he got to network and stretch his wings. As it so happened Serena was scheduled to present as well and she was due to speak today.

But first she was making the rounds of the wards to check that everyone’s cover was accounted for. She’d made Keller her first stop.

Bernie sat down heavily on the nearest desk as soon as Serena appeared on the ward floor.

Serena had dressed early for her presentation.

Her suit was pressed, navy blue, and tailored within an inch of life. Her shirt was a fresh cream that set off her pale skin. She was at her professional finest and just fit as all hell on top of that.

Bernie had suspected Serena’s arguably conservative workplace duds concealed a desirable figure. She hadn’t suspected they concealed curves that could make a grown woman get down and beg. Bernie worried she was in a begging mood.

Bernie let herself linger over Serena’s natty attire a moment longer as the other woman approached the nurses’ station for an update.  The open collar of her shirt accentuated her neck and showed off her prominent collarbones to best effect. Her customary pendant glinted dangling in front of her chest, hinting at cleavage below.  Bernie hadn’t considered Serena in a suit when she contemplated her fellow consultant outside of work attire. She’d known better than to let herself think too much about Serena out of her everyday clothes as her mind was liable to wander to imagining her in nothing. It would be from now on when it wasn’t contemplating Serena in _this._

“How’s my favorite consultant on this fine afternoon?”  Serena traced a line across Bernie’s shoulders as she rounded the nurse’s station to join her in back of it.

“Am I your favorite?” Bernie asked once she’d suppressed her shiver.

“Undoubtedly. Don’t tell the others.” She flashed a smile at a nurse nearby who beamed back. Serena might not be the most popular deputy CEO but hers was the face most of the employees were happiest to see. She was the life of the party; she _was_ the party.

Bernie cleared her throat, drawing Serena’s focus back to her.  “Will they get horribly jealous?” Bernie wasn’t, surely not.

“They should.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m actively recruiting you for my ward.  I don’t take just anybody.”

“Are you?” She was, had made no bones about it.  Bernie preened even as she held back on consenting. She was employed on a locum basis at present. If all went well she’d be permanent staff herself soon enough. She had options. She wanted Serena to work for her attention. Flustered as she was, she couldn’t let Serena have everything for free.  “I must be good.”

“You know you are. That’s why I want you.”

Desire pulsed low in her gut as Serena placed a hand on her knee.  It was utterly harmless in the grand scheme of things, except nothing Serena did was harmless and even the smallest touch seemed liable to set Bernie ablaze. The scrape of her nails through Bernie’s thin cotton scrubs made Bernie’s breath catch. She pressed her legs together just so to take the edge off.

Serena’s slightly crooked smile grew, slow and knowing. Bernie licked her lips.

“All right, Ms. Wolfe?”

 “All right.”

Serena removed her hand, and Bernie remembered, just in time, how to breathe.

“Am I right in assuming you’ve got everything in hand while Ric’s off regaling the medical community with tales of his brilliance?” Bernie passed over the updated staff rota for Serena’s perusal.

“I have. I’m plotting his overthrow as we speak.”

“Good. That’ll keep him on his toes. He needs a woman that can do that.”

“More than his last six wives?”

Serena’s brow furrowed. “More than his seventh, whoever she may be, poor sod.”

“Aye aye,” Bernie murmured in sympathy. She subtly shifted from the desk to the nearest rolling chair to put some distance between them.  Serena had opted for a less subtle perfume, something spicy and alluring.  Bernie was allured.  “You’re dressed up.  Exciting plans after the big presentation?”

“Dinner and cocktail hour, a spot of dancing if my luck holds.”

“Anyone in particular caught your eye?” There was usually someone.  “The new locum maybe?”

“Fleur Fanshawe from Obs and Gynae?” So that was the infamous Fleur. A big personality in a minute package. “Oh no, we’re old friends, she and I.  No sparks there any longer. Besides, she’s been hired on permanently starting in November.”

“So who’s the lucky person?”

Serena drummed her varnished nails on the desk. Neat and well-manicured, like the rest of her.  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would.”

“Whatever for?”  Serena propped a hip on the desk right by Bernie’s hand. She had hips to spare, she did, and Bernie had never particularly considered herself a hip woman before.  Bernie twiddled a pen between her fingers. It was safer than what she’d rather do.

“Curiosity’s sake. You intrigue me. I’m forever wondering what you’re up to.” And who.

“Careful, I may blush.”

“I’d pay to see you reduced to blushing.” Bernie could flirt, too.

“Would you now?  Perhaps that could be arranged some night this week.”

Bernie demurred, recalling what a dangerous game this was against an expert player.  “I’m on shift every night this week.”

Serena grazed Bernie’s knuckles with the backs of her fingers.  She left tingling heat in her wake. “Then next week. Drinks…on me?”

“Your date tonight might have something to say about that.”

“It’s a first date, not an engagement party.”

Bernie clucked in genuine regret.  “On second thought, I’ve just remembered I’m scheduled to work nights on Keller all next week as well.”

“That’s a pity since I was looking forward to dancing with you.  Rain check,” offered Serena.

“Rain check,” Bernie agreed.  She had no intention of ever taking Serena up on her proposition, however innocently tendered.  Serena was ruthless as she was clever as she was entrancing.  The gossip mill had yet to name a locum consultant or agency nurse who had resisted her charms.  Bernie swore to be the first.

Though what a challenge that was going to be if Serena kept showing up dressed like this.

*

Jac didn’t bother removing her glasses or pausing her note taking to listen to Bernie’s frenzied rambling about bloody distracting Serena Campbell.  
  
“I don’t see what you think I can do for you. I told you what Serena's like and what she likes. Have sex with her or don't have sex with her, it's your decision and not actually of interest to me at all.  That clear enough for you? Perfect. Close the door behind you on your way out. Some of us actually do work around here.”

*

They kissed for the first time under a sprig of mummified mistletoe in August. Nobody had thought to remove it the year before. All the better for Bernie to nestle between Serena's legs and kiss her on an unused trolley in an unused supply closet on Keller Ward.

It was a long time coming.

Months of teasing and flirting. Serena finding reasons to brush engine grease from Bernie’s cheek (Serena’s car was still a lemon). Bernie finding reasons to card her fingers through Serena’s short, sleek hair (scrub cap hair was dreadful and Bernie always scrubbed out first). They had lunch together and coffee, all friendly. They’d yet to go out for dinner outside hospital grounds. Bernie knew the line she was toeing was significant only to her. It wasn’t dating, it was befriending. Serena was her friend. They talked about useless ex-husbands and difficult children. They had a moan about sexist male colleagues who weren’t as good as they were sure they were in bed or in theater.  They agreed Jac Naylor was as close to a ten as either of them had seen outside the silver screen.  Serena had cheerfully declared Bernie a certified 9.9, a ten herself if they were rounding.

Bernie had been struck in that moment with the overwhelming urge to crawl in Serena’s lap right in the middle of Pulses and kiss her. It wasn’t the compliment, Bernie had got her share of remarks like that from men and women alike, it was the sincerity.  However many notches she might lay claim to—Serena never told, others did the telling—Serena was the soul of sincere passion. Bernie’s heart was in danger yet she was too foolish, too yearning, and too damned masochistic to stay away.

The day they kissed, Serena had coaxed her inside the supply room under the guise of discussing one thing or another.  Probably to discuss the ancient sprig of berries she’d found dangling from some inconspicuous ventilation grate. They were always making ridiculous discoveries like that. Old mistletoe, faded and torn engagement banners from parties years past. They’d even found some old Christmas crackers that still had life in them. They’d sat on the floor of Serena’s office giggling like children over the contents. Serena, naturally, had adorned herself in the crown. Bernie had wanted to kiss her then, too.

It was inevitable.

Bernie had come inside the supply closet to sate her curiosity. She stayed to sate her lust.

“It’s tradition,” Serena had prompted, fluttering her lashes in that playful way she had. She had the loveliest eyelashes, Bernie thought, and the softest-looking lips. She was fresh out of theater, hence their lipstick-free condition. Before Serena could say she was joking, she was always joking, Bernie was stepping in to cover Serena’s mouth with hers. It was an inelegant kiss to start with, confused murmurs and clicking, clashing incisors, but they soon sorted that. Bernie cradled the back of her head and slotted their mouths together and _oh._

Serena grabbed her shoulders and moaned. Bernie thought she might have been saying “yes.” They stumbled backward toward a back corner, someplace they were least likely to be disturbed on the off-chance someone came looking for something in here.  Serena led and Bernie followed, cognizant of nothing but Serena. Serena’s breasts flush against hers, Serena’s hips, Serena’s mouth open and welcoming Bernie in.

Kissing Serena was good. That was her lust-addled primitive brain talking, egging her on.  Serena was a decadent kisser, slow and deep and filthy, leaving none of Bernie's mouth unexplored or unmapped. She'd unspooled Bernie's ponytail to stroke and twist her hands through Bernie's golden hair. The trolley was probably old and broken, or out of safety code, but it did its duty holding them up. Bernie would write odes to that trolley and its faithful service if she remembered a thing about it other than how it let Bernie slide a hand under Serena and make her giggle, or how it was the perfect height to let their bodies grind together.

At some point, possibly years later, Bernie became aware of herself being paged on the PA system. She was meant to be somewhere else, doing something else. She had never meant to be doing this. Coming back to herself was a long fall and Serena wasn’t, couldn’t be her soft place to land. Leaving was hard, though.  Serena protested sweetly, earnestly whenever Bernie made to leave, coaxing Bernie back into her arms with the lure of one more kiss.  Serena cupped the back of Bernie's neck, chased her mouth when they separated for breath.  Her lips were soft, slick perfection fitted against Bernie's. Bernie lost all perception of time kissing her.

It was only when Serena was being paged to deal with an en-route RTC, ETA six minutes, that they both snapped out of their mutual thrall.

Serena licked her kiss-swollen lips. Iron will was all that prevented Bernie from kissing her again. 

“I'm needed on AAU.”

“I have paperwork, discharge forms. Probably Ric to answer to.”

Serena kissed her once more, nipped lightly at her bottom lip.  Bernie growled and dragged her in for a series of quick, hard pecks. Serena sighed and cupped her cheek. They parted with a brushing of noses.

Serena hopped down from the trolley and straightened her blouse. Bernie righted her scrubs.

“Good day, Ms. Wolfe.”

“It is now.”

Serena was the first of them to slip away. She sauntered out of the closet toward the lifts with a sly backwards glance that set Bernie’s heart racing.

Bernie snuck out on unsteady legs ten minutes after Serena had disappeared back to AAU.  Workplace romances were not what this chapter of her career was meant to be about. There was just something about Serena.

The rest of her workday passed in a daze. Routine procedures, new admissions, and drudge work. Bantering with Dom and the junior doctors. Ribbing Ric endlessly for the hell of it.  Trying to keep her head out of the clouds and her feet firmly on the ground. None of it worked.  Serena fizzed in her blood and everything was brighter for her influence. 

Bernie brought herself off twice that night reimagining how their encounter might have transpired were they in a proper bed instead of a dusty storeroom in a forgotten corner of Keller. The tongue that had teased at the seam of her lips teasing at her entrance, dipping inside, shallower and then deeper, curling and then retreating till Bernie quaked against her smirking mouth.

Bernie took pains to avoid Serena the following day, sure that Serena would somehow be able to sense how she'd spent her night. She had worked herself into an exhausted sleep acting out her desires. She was still stretching out the cramp in her dominant hand come morning. Her vibrator hadn't seen so much action in months.

Which meant, naturally, that Bernie ran into Serena everywhere. Every corner she rounded it seemed the woman was there. She’d seen the fluorescent lights shine over Serena’s downturned head as she was signing one form or another from Hanssen’s assistant. Her melodic voice was audible on the stairs where she’d stopped to have a word with a touring member of the board. She was stealing Ric’s coffee again and Ric, rolling his eyes like an indulgent elder brother, was letting her get away with it. She was everywhere and Bernie was terrified.

When Serena finally cornered Bernie at the nurses’ station Bernie was too wired from all the coffee she’d drunk and too tired of running to be anything but resigned.

“When am I going to get to take you out?” Serena asked her, perched on the desk, distracting fingers laced together.

“With your busy schedule I don't expect you've got an availability before New Year's.”  
  
“I make room for the ones who matter.”  
  
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”  Bernie meant it to come out more playfully than it did. A bit of fun was a bit of fun so long as everyone knew what they were after. Bernie thought she did. She had thought she did.

“No flies on the big macho army medic, hmm? You're damned hard work, you know. Good thing I enjoy a challenge.”

“You'd better step up your game if you want to bag me. I'm starting to doubt your commitment.”  
  
“You won't need to question it if you let me take you out.” Serena edged her thumb under the long sleeve of Bernie's thermal top.  “We could continue where we left off last time.”  
  
Bernie's face grew hot. She had finished that all on her own.  
  
“Unless someone got there first?” She had assumed a neutral tone. Serena could give Bernie competition for being stoic when the mood struck her.  
  
“Oh. Erm, no one special.” Serena cupped her elbow.  That hand had pinched Bernie’s bum in the supply cupboard yesterday. Bernie gulped, her throat dry. Those fingers had been buried between her thighs in her dreams the night before. “I should get to work.”  
  
“I’m due in theater, anyway. See you around, Ms. Wolfe. You’re welcome on my ward any day.”  
  
“Likewise.”

“That's heating up quickly,” remarked Ric on the approach, pretending to read a patient’s chart who just been discharged. “It usually takes her longer to go after a fellow consultant.”  
  
“She doesn't date consultants?”  
  
“No permanent staff members, usually. Her position as deputy CEO makes most relationships a conflict of interest. Flings are less trouble. They don’t typically need to be reported to HR if they’re passing fancies, though Serena does anyway pro forma. You, she hasn’t said more than a couple of words about. She’s treading very lightly. You must be special.”

“Does Serena do special?”

Ric eyed her warily. For all she and Serena frequently joined forces to give the man his worth, Bernie never forgot Ric had known Serena first. Their old bond was evident in his protectiveness now.

“Less than she should but more than most people think.”

*

Serena joined her on the line at Pulses come some chilly day in October. Someone had taken it upon themselves to dress up the coffee kiosk in pumpkins and cobwebs. There were foil black cats tacked to the walls and a plaster witch spinning on a cord attached to the ceiling.

“Did I see your picture in the Holby circular this month or have you got an equally fetching doppelganger?” Bernie favored her with a side-long glance. Serena rarely missed a chance to talk Bernie up and today was no exception.

“If you saw mine, I saw yours.”

Both women had been asked to be featured in a Then & Now segment for the Holby Hospital quarterly circular. It included pictures of them as teenagers, university students, junior doctors, and in the present, along with a brief Q&A regarding what advice they’d give their younger selves if they could.

So far Bernie had gotten no end of ribbing from her colleagues about her hair and her clothes. Fleur had cooed at her freckled young self in her rugby kit and deemed her cute as a button.  Dom had taken one look at uni first year Berenice Wolfe in her brown houndstooth waistcoat and penny loafers and declared her a budding lesbian from that photo alone.

Serena, from the earliest age, was Bernie’s polar opposite. She was a young fashion plate at not so sweet sixteen, her hair teased and ears pierced. Every bit of her attitude. Uni Serena was the definition of a pseudo-punk, wearing a tie for a headband, her hair shorn to the length it remained to this day, eyes lined in inky kohl. More polished than her teen self yet equally truculent, all jutted chin and challenging eyes that would have rendered Bernie immobile had she met her at a pub at age nineteen. Junior doctor Serena had her edges filed smooth. What had been youthful rebellion had been molded into surety and self-confidence. She recognized her capacity for greatness and would let no one shake her faith. Serena today was that woman compounded by decades of hard knocks and self-made victories. A woman after Bernie’s own heart at any age.

Serena squeezed ahead of Bernie in the line to order and pay for the drinks.  They liked their coffee the same way, black, no frills. They took a minute out of their busy day to catch up. Always running, them, even now they occupied the same ward. Serena had achieved her goal in one arena, at least. Bernie was on AAU now.

“The juniors can’t believe you were a punk in university.” They’d talked about nothing else. Serena ‘rules and regulations first and last’ Campbell, punk? What next, a tattoo? Bernie certainly hoped there was that to look forward to hearing about.

“Pseudo-punk, actually. I was bit young for the scene during its heyday. Still, anarchist tendencies were going around back then. You remember Thatcher.”

“Don’t I ever.” Those had been loud days for the Wolfe household and not only because her parents were staunch Thatcherites while the children were anything but.  “Hang on.” She pointed at her drink.  “How is it you know how I like my coffee?”

“I asked the barista. They make it their business to keep a record of what their regulars prefer. That isn’t privileged information, is it?”

“No, but nobody’s done that for me before.”

“Someone should. We all could do with a bit of spoiling now and then.”

They bumped shoulders. Bernie smiled into her coffee and declared, “I think I’d have liked you had I known you back then.”

“I know I would have liked you. I’d have made it my mission to pull you out of your shell. I can be very determined when I meet someone I want to befriend.”

“I’d have put up token resistance at best.”

“Like you are now?”

Bernie shrugged.

“Have you considered I have my reasons for choosing not to get involved with you?” Bernie had put the brakes on what they’d begun in the supply closet. It was too much too soon. Serena was all-consuming and Bernie was tinder waiting to burn. Serena had been understanding about being let down and then she’d been on to the next suitor without missing a step.

“I assumed it was fear.”

“I don’t fear much; you should know that.”

“Not much would frighten you, I agree.  Am I so scary?”

On hearing the doubt underlying her question, Bernie couldn’t help taking her hand. She was enamored of Serena’s hands.  Friends held hands.

“Not at all. You’re an interesting woman, Serena. You put interesting women to shame. It’s…you’re far too attractive and you know it. I’ve never been drawn in by lotharios, not in school and not now that I’m divorced, and I’ve been targeted by some of the best.  You’re—you’re different, Serena, to me. But I don’t think I’m different from any other conquest to you. Being another Holby notch on your bedpost isn’t worth complicating our working relationship. Given the option, I’d prefer to be able to work with you than go to bed with you.”

“That’s…fair.”   

“You sound vexed.” And not a little bit perplexed. She had no business being quite so endearing in either state.

Serena groused in resignation, “I hate that you make it sound so reasonable.” She huffed. “But you do and you’re right.  I’d rather have you in theater than in bed, and that’s saying something considering how attractive you are to me.”

“Thanks?” Serena tickled the back of her hand, a wry gesture of affection that made Bernie sigh. Serena was effortlessly romantic.

“You _are_ different, Bernie, and I think—I hope we might be friends, better friends. I’m going to leave you be and hope someday you’ll agree with me.” She raised a finger. “Have this first.” She produced a wrapped sandwich from her voluminous coat pocket. It was Bernie’s favorite.

“How did you—“

“I asked around, Bernie. It never hurts to ask. You’d be surprised what you’ll find out.”

Serena kissed her fingers (Bernie’s heart lurched) and left her to her meal. She had a previous engagement.

*

Being Serena’s friend was the better and worse part of her work week. Serena the consultant was timely and fastidious and conscientious. Serena the romantic was impulsive and effusive and prone to excess. Each in their spheres was remarkable but when they intersected they could prove unpredictable.

Serena had had a late night and an early shift. She’d taken to the on-call room to rest her head between non-critical patients. She’d called it an oncoming migraine.  Bernie wasn’t so sure.

Bernie arrived with an update on Miss Furyborn to find Serena staring at the ceiling. She offered Serena Fletch’s idea of coffee and Serena was desperate enough to take it.

“Had a good time last night?”

“Evidently I did.”  Serena downed her coffee hotter than hot.  Bernie winced in sympathy for her throat.  Serena groaned in relief as the caffeine began to take effect. “Remind me what I was thinking doing that on a work night.”

“I did mention it might be unwise, but you were dead set on reveling.” They talked about Serena’s dates sometimes. The friendly get-togethers with university chums. Reunions with colleagues from other hospitals. Visitors from Harvard. Serena’s social calendar was more packed than the Queen’s, in Bernie’s view. She still wondered where she ever would have fit.

“I’m an idiot,” Serena declared after a noisy belch and a red-faced apology.

“Was she pretty at least?” She was determined to be happy that Serena wasn’t lonely. Bernie wasn’t lonely. She had the odd date herself when she found the time. Work was her social life; everything else a distraction.

“Him, and he was fine. Plenty good-looking.” Serena worried a brow. Probably where her headache had localized.  “Though I must admit going out with men always reminds me why I don’t do it more often.”

“Then why did you go?”

“Boredom? Loneliness? A free meal. Don’t know.”

Bernie joined her on the edge of the bed.  Serena was still looking green around the gills. When she leaned her weight on Bernie, Bernie didn’t protest.  “You could have asked me to go out with you.”

“I think we’ve already established you don’t respond well to my overtures.”

“I might if you ask me again.”

“Trust you to wait till I’m well and truly pissed to take pity on me. No, I can handle a bad wine bender on my own. I can handle anything on my own. I always do.” For once, Serena didn’t sound proud of her solitary stance on living. A lover at every port and still alone.  What Bernie wouldn’t give not to know how she felt.

“Let me get you a fresh coffee.”

Serena gingerly shook her head and sat up straight. She refused to lean on Bernie anymore. She got like that sometimes.  “You head back to the ward, I’ll get myself together and be there in a tick.”

“I don’t mind, Serena.”

“I mind. Please go.  One of us should be on the ward at the moment and I’m in no state.”

“Okay.” Bernie rose from the edge of the bed. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Soon.”  Serena buried her face her hands. Bernie left her to her solitude.

For all that she played at being an open book, Serena could be impossible to read. If Bernie regretted anything it was passing on copious opportunities to get to know the woman behind the persona better than she did.

Fleur Fanshawe was waiting in their shared office wearing an expression that might have seemed coy on anybody else. 

“You and Serena have grown cozy of late.”

Bernie might have been getting used to being accosted by consultants out of the blue, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

“Do you need something?”

“Just here to pass on a patient file I was using for a case study I’m writing. Serena let me borrow it.”

“How kind. I’ll pass it back.” She dropped it on her side of the desk. She’d file it herself.

Fleur leaned on Serena’s desk, casual as you please. “So you and Serena...”

“There is no ‘me and Serena’, as you put it. We’re friends”—who every so often come near to shagging—“and colleagues.  She’s taken me under her wing, helped me learn the ropes on AAU.” Serena had all but thrown open the doors to her ward when it became evident Bernie’s skills were being wasted on Keller. When Hanssen revealed Serena had proposed a trauma unit to put Bernie to best use, she nearly broke her vow about not getting further involved with Serena. But now it was more important than ever. Now they were co-leads, their professional fortunes were inextricably linked. Bernie wouldn’t be the one to ruin the partnership they’d painstakingly built.

“She’s good at that, gathering a little flock of the lost and dispossessed around her. If they’re women, all the better. She loves to see a woman shine.”

“She does, doesn’t she?”

“It’s her calling in life.”

“More than being a Casanova?” Fleur’s expression shifted from impish to flinty in a blink.

“She’s a romantic at heart who knows what people like. Don’t hold it against her. It’s very sweet.”

Bernie couldn’t resist asking. “You and her, did you two ever…?”

“The timing was never right.  But no regrets.  I couldn’t ask for a better friend. Nor could you.”

Another warning. The sugar coating it couldn’t hope to disguise the flavor. Serena might have been lonely under all the glamour and come-ons, but no one could question she was loved.

*

In November Bernie passed on a lucrative secondment to Kiev to remain in Holby City and discovered the destructive power of jealousy.

She had known she could be jealous. It was part of the human condition and Bernie was only human, however much she might try to be otherwise when the chips were down. She hadn’t known it could rule her in the same way desire could, or come near to ruining the best friendship she’d ever known. Twice.

Had someone asked Bernie what Serena could wear to drive her to distraction, this dress would rank in the top two with best in show given to Serena waiting, naked as a jaybird, in Bernie's bed at close of day.  The plunging neckline and clingy silhouette. The sequins—or were they crystals?—painted her like stained glass. Every place the light hit her, she shined.  The slit in back exposed calves sculpted by years of twelve-hour shifts spent on her feet. A flash of strappy sandals provided Serena a few crucial inches of extra height that for once allowed her to look down at Bernie instead of up.

She was giving Sacha updated instructions on covering AAU in her absence. There was a gala tonight for potential Holby Trust donors and Serena had a gift for gab that made her a popular attraction at these 'dos. There were ranking officers of Bernie's acquaintance who would lay down their pensions to come within a stone's throw of a woman like Serena Campbell. That Bernie was openly staring when she should have been reviewing a patient's test results was proof she wasn't above them.

Bernie flipped through her patient’s imaging results. She hadn’t comprehended anything she’d seen in the last two minutes.

“Hello.” Bernie’s stomach churned in upset at the sound of her voice, as if it was left reeling like the rest of Bernie whenever Serena was near. Bernie cleared the frog from her throat.

“Hi.”

Serena watched her and not with her usual flirtatious twinkle.  Bernie didn’t so much enjoy being the subject of her scrutiny when Serena wasn’t undressing her with her eyes.

“Something the matter?” Serena asked.

“No, why would you think that?” Bernie still didn’t know what these results said. The exact shade of brown of Serena’s eyes, she’d committed to memory, however.

“You _can_ handle splitting the load with Sacha tonight?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t done before, you know that.”

Serena squeezed her shoulder. Her touch lingered as it did whenever she touched Bernie. It cast Bernie under the same spell it had every time before. “Knew I could count on you.”

There was still something wrong between them, something off and nothing Bernie did to correct her expression shook Serena’s focus. Bernie longed to squirm out from under the weight of Serena’s touch, or she wanted to stay right here all night; she was of two minds about everything to do with Serena. About Serena and her.

“Is there something you need to say to me?”

“No, what makes you think that?” Bernie focused on the results. There was a mass on Mr. Owens’s kidney. Cytology had shown it to be malignant.

“Your attitude, for one.”

“Nothing wrong with my attitude.” Bernie powered down the tablet. She was in for an upsetting chat before the night was through. Another upsetting chat.  “Date tonight,” she asked. Better to discuss the old standbys than venture into uncharted territory. Serena always had a date. She wouldn’t have dressed unless there was someone by whom she wanted to be seen.

“Yes. Problem?” Serena did that sometime, asked Bernie whether she minded. Bernie didn’t know when it had started to feel malicious. Of course she minded.

“None at all. It’s your life, nothing to do with me. Is it anybody I know?”

“I don’t know who you know, Bernie. You’re determined to remain mysterious. It isn’t like I haven’t asked.” Serena was forever asking questions. Bernie’s birthday. Her hobbies. Her favorite movie. Serena wanted Bernie cracked open so she could suss her out. Bernie worried Serena might not like what she found inside.

“It's fine.”

“It clearly isn’t. You’re upset and I want to know why.”

"If you can’t figure it out-"

Serena waved Sacha down from bay 2. “I’m going to borrow this one for a bit. I’ll bring her straight back.” Without giving Sacha time to object, she beckoned Bernie to follow her off the ward floor, which Bernie did, grudgingly.  “I want to know what’s upsetting you, so I'm asking.” She ushered Bernie into the unoccupied on-call room down the corridor and flipped the lock behind them.  “Tell me.”

Serena was chockfull of demands and Bernie swallowed them all. She yielded, she folded, she acquiesced and nothing changed. No matter what Bernie gave and Serena took, it wasn’t quite enough. Serena wanted more and she found it someplace else.

“Bernie, what is it? What’s happening in your head?”

Bernie saw no reason to spare her feelings.

“You make people feel so special but none of us are. We're just another notch on your belt.”

Serena pressed in close. “You aren't.”

Bernie’s skin prickled at her proximity. Every atom of her body wanted Serena, had wanted her from the first words they spoke, from the instant they touched.

“Oh please, that won't work on me, Serena. I'm not a nurse or a locum, you can't dazzle me with your title. I have rank on my side.”

"I don't want to dazzle you, I want to get to know you, and _not_ merely in a professional capacity, if that's in doubt. You can't expect me to give what you want if you refuse to tell me what you want. Though I am possessed of many useful talents, telepathy isn’t one of them.” Bernie retreated in search of breathing room. Serena’s perfume taunted her like the umbra of heat rising off her body. Bernie couldn’t think. She hadn’t been thinking for months. She had been cautioned and she had scoffed in the face of it in spite of it coming from somebody wise enough to know better.

“Why did you invite me into that cupboard? Really?” It had puzzled her for weeks.

“You wanted me to. That's how I read the situation. We’d been dancing around it. I wanted to kiss you, but I knew you needed to be the first to act. I wanted you. I still do.” Her eyes were soft , as was her voice.  _I bet everyone she flirts with feels this way._ Bernie’s bewilderment hung over her like a storm cloud.

“I am not a plaything. I'm not here to amuse you.”

“Where is this coming from?” From the ugly voice in Bernie’s head that told her Serena was too good too be true and too good to want her. From the green-eyed monster occupying her chest that had grown sick and tired of watching Serena come back from each liaison smiling in self-satisfaction or drifting under a black cloud of displeasure that lasted days. None of them were good enough to shine her shoes and deep down Bernie knew, neither was she. Bernie spoke louder than the voice; she wouldn’t let it speak for her.

“I just got out of an intense, emotional affair that ended badly. I don't—I can't, I _won't_ be caught like that again.”

“I understand.” Serena had understood all along. She was understanding when Bernie wanted her to be proactive. Bernie wanted her to fight. She wanted to be wanted by Serena more than anybody else and that she wasn’t…It was unbearable. She took a step back. She couldn’t talk about this. It wasn’t Serena’s fault she felt like this. Bernie swept her fringe back from her face. She had to regain control. _Don’t break this friendship._ Serena glittered like a chandelier or brilliant-cut diamond.

“You look...I love the dress. The sparkles really suit you.”

“I look like Cher.”  She was laughing at herself a little.

“Then why wear it?”

“If I can't be fabulous when I'm out on the town, when can I be?”

“I always find you fabulous.”

“That's what I think when I see you.”  Bernie’s mile-high walls began to suffer cracks. More cracks. Serena had been making in-roads and they had become a secret passage to where Bernie was most vulnerable, right at her heart.

“With a scalpel in my hand?” she hazarded, hopeful that Serena might have mercy on her and let her save face.

“Or a cup of coffee. When you're trudging to your car in the rain and I think of offering you a ride back to my place. When you're smoking those cigarettes you're planning to give up any day now and all I can think about is how your lips taste.” Serena drew her forefinger over Bernie’s sensitive lips.  No mercy.

“Serena...please.”

She let Serena take her hand.

“I think about meeting you in the lift where we first chatted. Do you know what I would do if I had it all to do again?”

“Give me your number?”  Bernie had it now, third on her speed dial after her kids, but that had taken some doing.

“I’d have typed it in your mobile right off. Next, I’d have invited you round to dinner for two and convinced you to stay for breakfast.”

“You don't cook.”

“You shouldn't believe everything you hear from Scary Sue on ITU. I dated a Michelin-star chef for a year. Learned a thing or two. Enough to keep you fed.” Serena touched the side of Bernie’s neck, resting her thumb on her jaw. She was always going on about Bernie’s jawline or her cheekbones. The prominent tendons of her neck.  She’d made no secret of her appreciation, her open-ended desire for Bernie. It was the candor of that desire that froze Bernie in fear.

“What is it you want with me, Serena?”

“I want you. The rest is strings and rationale. Actions can say it all.”

Bernie was tired and jealous (who would touch her tonight, kiss her tonight, wake up beside her tomorrow), and Serena was beautiful. She was right here. Close as fingertips could touch.

“Show me what you want with me, then.”

A smile broke across Serena’s face, slow and heart-deep, and she cupped Bernie’s face in her hands just to gaze at her.  _God help me if everyone feels this way._ She was still smiling when her lips met Bernie’s.

Serena drew her in by the waist and kissed each of her lips over and over until Bernie’s incredulity transformed into hoarse, punch drunk laughter and she kissed back. She wound her arms around Serena’s body and sighed into her parted lips. Serena’s tongue ghosted against the tips of hers.  She tilted Bernie’s head back to kiss her as she liked: The glancing press of open mouths and brushing tongues. Tasting and learning Bernie afresh. All Serena’s doing. When Bernie pressed for more, she retreated, eliciting a series of needful whines Bernie would have groaned to hear from herself were she anything like coherent. But she wasn’t. She was drowning, she was lust-mad. She was twitterpated.

Serena broke from her lips to scatter kisses along her hairline, across her temple, down over the sensitive whorls of her ear.  Serena couldn’t kiss her enough. Bernie couldn’t stop touching her.  The multicolored decals on her dress scraped Bernie's palms. Serena was everywhere warm where Bernie got her hands on skin.  Bernie wanted to taste every inch of her now. It had to be now.

“Can I?”

Bernie nodded, robbed of her voice and good sense.

Serena pulled off Bernie's scrub top.

Bernie kissed her hard, desperate to have Serena as hot and desperate as she felt whenever they touched or spoke or shared a pregnant glance across the ward.

Her long sleeve shirt went next. Bernie wasn’t even cold. She couldn’t remember what it was to be anything but burning with desire.

“Come here." Serena drew her toward the cushy old sofa under the window.

"I can't, Serena, my back.”

“Hoped you’d say that.  Have I told you I love how you say my name?”

They tumbled into the rickety twin bed, Bernie panting on her back and Serena draped on top. The supply room had done nothing to prepare Bernie for how good, how right Serena would feel lying between her legs.

They kissed and kissed. Soft and hard and quick and slow.  All Bernie wanted was this for as long as she could have it. Serena had branded her; she’d written herself on every layer of Bernie’s skin.

Serena laved the fading scar on Bernie's neck with her tongue.  She splayed her fingers over Bernie's abdomen, tracing the defined muscles contracting beneath her prickling skin. Her short nails scraped along the band of Bernie's sports bra, teasing her with the possibility of slipping under to cup her breasts. Serena was a world-class tease.

“What a gorgeous thing you are,” she breathed into the crook of her shoulder. “I've wanted you such a long time.”  
  
Molten heat pooled low in Bernie's belly. She ached, wetter than she’d been after the supply room, after Serena had fondled her hair on the lift or kissed her hand at Pulses.  Serena was Bernie’s personal aphrodisiac. This was insane. But then she hadn't been entirely sane since Serena first laid hands on her.  She was maddening and Bernie was mad for her.

Bernie was mad for her.

Bernie was in love with her.

She turned her head away to avoid Serena’s next kiss where it was meant to land on her mouth. Serena kissed her ear and her heart did somersaults. Serena did anything and Bernie saw stars. She was in love with her. She had been all this time.  _Does everyone she kisses with feel this way?_

Bernie scrambled upright. Her heart was racing for reasons new and frightening. She’d been such a fool.

“Serena, I—I’ve changed my mind.”

“What?”

“I can’t do this. I…Serena, I can’t. I’m…I know you’re not serious about me. I’m not looking for marriage, but I can’t just be another conquest.”

“You aren’t a conquest. I don’t know what sort of person you think I am, Bernie, but I don’t treat people like they’re disposable. I’ve been down that road, I’ve been that woman, the one that gets thrown away. I don’t do that.”

“I just.” Bernie disengaged herself from Serena and rapidly began to re-dress. She’d lost her tops and her shoes; her bottoms were untied. She would have let Serena bed her here and now, her shift be hanged. “I can’t do this with you.”

“Right.” Serena sat up on the edge of the messy bed Bernie had abandoned. She raked her hand through her hair. “Okay. Sorry. Won’t try that again.”

“I know I’m probably giving off mixed signals-“

Serena shut her eyes and raised her hands to stop Bernie explaining further.

“No, no need to go on. Your signals are clear as a bell. As I said, it won’t happen again. I’m running late. Keep an eye on the patients, trust Sacha to cover the rest.”

Bernie hustled out of the on-call room the instant she was decent.

 _Stupid. I was so stupid.  I could not be more of an idiot._ Bernie banged her hands on the rim of the sink in the ladies after Serena had left, beyond fashionably late, for her donor gala on gentlemanly Hanssen’s arm. For all her ranting and protestations, she was inexorably drawn to Serena.  Serena was sexy and deeply sensual. Her cocksure confidence struck a secret chord in Bernie's body and played it to perfection.  She was bold and beautiful, and all that Bernie saw in her Serena claimed to see in Bernie. They were a set of funhouse mirrors, desire and yearning and hunger reflected and refracted in a never-ending spiral.

She'd thought she had a handle on this. Serena was gorgeous, to be sure, but she was only a woman like any other who'd caught Bernie's eye. She knew herself and made no bones about pursuing the object of her desires. She was unabashed in her ambitions. She had vowed neither monogamy nor romance. Knowing all that, Bernie had fallen for her and her saucy smile and her divoted chin, arse over tit.  Bernie had hurt herself and made Serena the weapon of her destruction.  _Stupid!_

Lust she could rationalize, but anything else? She had known women who got their hearts stolen by self-proclaimed Romeos throughout her life. No happy endings had come of any part of it, and Bernie had more reasons than most to think she wasn't entitled to one. Courting Serena for more than sport would be akin to courting disaster. Bernie was responsible for enough harm to herself and those around her not to want to add more to her ledger. But here they were. She’d done it again.

*

It was Serena who did the avoiding this time. No more caffeine fixes. No more long assessing looks from afar. Certainly no more teasing caresses that left Bernie aching to her core and weak at the knees in equal measure.  Serena had taken Bernie’s rejection to heart, and she was moving on.

Bernie spied Serena chatting up an agency nurse from Pedes not two days later. She was stroking her inner arm and making the woman giggle. Serena’s smile was wrong or maybe Bernie’s eyes deceived her. Her expression was belied by her eyes. The spark Bernie had fallen in love with was missing. She didn’t say a word when Bernie passed close by. That hurt worse.

A week or so on, Bernie was having coffee with a pretty locum from ITU, at Dom’s prodding, when Serena passed through Pulses on the arm of a board member. Angus something or other.  Anyone could see it was a date.  Serena was put together beautifully, more so than the typical day to day, her hair freshly cut and lips painted kissably crimson.  Angus whomever couldn’t stop staring at her mouth; Bernie couldn’t stop staring, period.  This was the first time in days she and Serena had occupied the hospital during the same shift. Their previously aligned schedules had diverged in opposite directions shortly after the on-call room. Now they only interacted on AAU when one was handing over control to the other and as little as possible even then.  They were like ships passing in the night. Bernie missed her.

*

Bernie came into the hospital early when sleep proved elusive. She’d been working with her therapist to resolve her difficulties with confrontation. She tended toward avoidance when at all possible. She didn’t want to avoid Serena; she wanted to be as close to her as she could be. Hence her decision to do this now instead of a year from now, instead of never if at all possible.

She grabbed a chart off the file stand for something to occupy her hands. Serena’s shoulders rose incrementally toward her ears. It was obvious she hadn’t slept well: her lipstick and blouse clashed.

“Good date yesterday?” was Bernie’s sorry excuse for a conversation starter.

“Pardon?” Bernie held her ground though two porters and a nurse made for cover at her glacial tone.

“You and Angus. You seemed cozy at Pulses.” She regretted this line of conversation immediately.

“It was fine. He and I get along well enough.” Serena got along with everyone. That was the trouble.

“Does he know about the others?” Bernie loathed her jealous streak, would curse it in her next therapy session and then the one after that.

Serena slapped her tablet on the counter so hard they both flinched.  Serena shook it off.  “We don’t have an exclusive relationship, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Of course it isn’t. Nothing to do with me.  I was trying to be a friend.”

Serena hissed, “You’re not interested in being my friend. Let’s not go down that road.”

“Serena, I’m sorry if what I said hurt your feelings.”

“I don’t have feelings.  I’m a regular ice queen. Ask anyone.”

“Nobody thinks that.” Somebody probably did. Whenever a woman had an opinion that contradicted the majority, they earned two sobriquets, Ice Queen or Bitch. Serena knew of what she spoke. So did Bernie.

“You’d be surprised. If you’re quite finished questioning my veracity, I have a ward to run.” The slamming of their office door echoed through the ward.

Bernie stared at the space Serena had occupied only seconds ago. “That couldn’t have gone worse. Well done, Wolfe.” She’d sounded a perfectly jealous buffoon, which was just as well considering she despised boring board member Angus for getting to taste Serena’s ‘fuck me’ red lipstick direct from her lips.  She’d had excessively graphic dreams about it. “No one but myself to blame.”  Saying it aloud didn’t make her want to scream any less.

*

Bernie burned through three cigarettes on her self-imposed break before Dom managed to get away from Keller to join her for an emergency chat on the roof.

“What’s up?”

“You know Serena? Serena Campbell?”

“The woman you never stop prattling on about? Yeah, the name sounds familiar. What about her?”

“She’s sort of been chatting me up off and on since I got here.”  A funny way to describe Serena’s systematic seduction now it was done. Serena possessed her in full. Even the mention of her name made Bernie flush in arousal.

“Aren’t you a lucky girl? Though I hear she’s nothing like a cheap date so watch out for the wine bill.” He read her silent misery.  “Oh, that wasn’t a humble brag. You don’t want her hitting on you? Rare but conceivable.”

Bernie snuffed out a cigarette on the sole of her trainer. She hadn’t meant to keep it secret, not really. She just hadn’t wanted to share whatever it was between them with all and sundry. Dom had a tendency to talk whereas Jac Naylor would keep her own name a secret if it meant others left her to work in peace.

“It isn’t that I don’t find her attractive, I do very much, but her reputation isn’t…She seems to jump between casual affairs very easily. I just got out of an affair and a marriage and I suppose I’m looking for more stability or, or something. I don’t know. It’s…”

“I take it she isn’t responding well to your rejection?”

“She is, I think. No, she is. She’s agreed not to try and chat me up again.” Fat lot of good that did them. “That part is fine. She’s been nothing but respectful of my wishes in that regard.” Serena was likely to put an ocean between herself and Bernie if she could get away with it.

“But?” Dom prompted her. Bernie flicked the spark wheel of her lighter, setting up flickers in her hand.

“But, I think I may have inadvertently offended her when I knocked her back the last time.” Serena hadn’t looked at her. She hadn’t followed Bernie when she fled. She’d let her go.

Dom grimaced. “That is probably not great for your long-term career prospects here. She’s known for holding grudges.”

“I don’t know if it’s a grudge so much as, Dom, I think I hurt her feelings.” She shook her head.  “No, I know I did.” So preoccupied had she been with getting _out_ that she hadn’t thought to be kind.

“That’s one way to keep her from giving chase. What now? If you wanted her to back off, you got what you wanted, didn’t you?” What she thought she wanted. No, what she had thought was _best_ , as if she had the first idea. When it came to romance, Bernie was stumbling in the dark.

“I like her and I want her to like me, I do. Only I don’t think she does anymore. I’ve dropped a bomb on any chance of _anything_ between us.”

“I thought you didn’t want there to _be_ anything.” 

Bernie flipped her lighter shut and started to pace.  Moving sometimes helped keep her anxiety at bay. It was the height of ineffectiveness. She might as well try relocating a mountain using only her hands.

“I don’t want there to just be anything. Not on her terms, not like with all the other people she dates. I’m not interested in casual and I’m not up for sharing.  When I tried to say that, I may have implied that she throws her lovers away like Kleenex when she’s finished with them.”

Dom covered his mouth and then uncovered it with an incredulous whistle.

“That—okay, that’s—wow, you really went full A-bomb on that conversation.”

Bernie threw up her hands. “I panicked!  I—we’d been kissing and—I wanted her, Dom. God, I was dizzy with how desperately I wanted her. I would have done anything she asked me to do. I knew I couldn’t stay there and I had to make her leave me alone, so I just said whatever came to mind. I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did.”

“Does she know that?”

“I’m not sure she cares.”

“You need to tell her.  Whatever the outcome, she needs to know.”

The thought of waiting another day made Bernie sick so she finished her rounds with the F1 shadowing her and took herself off to the consultant’s office she’d let Serena have to herself for the past couple of weeks. She entered as Serena was wrapping up a review session with her latest keen junior, Jasmine Burrows. The girl beamed and scampered off to do whatever it was that Serena bid. The F1s seemed to get younger every year from Bernie’s perspective. Or maybe she was the one getting old.

Bernie sat down in the chair the girl had previously occupied. She was unaccountably nervous. This was Serena, her Serena, the woman who had been on the verge of being more twice upon a time.

“That junior doctor of yours seems keen.”

“Dr. Burrows is a clever, outgoing young woman.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. Do you need something, Ms. Wolfe?” Her frosty reception made Bernie flinch. This wasn’t how this was meant to go. Strike two.

“Could we start again? You had me on the ropes, I admit that, and now I’m on my back foot and I have no idea how to get back to where we were.”

Serena slapped closed an evaluation with Jasmine’s name on the label and turned back to her computer. 

“Sometimes it can’t be done. We have to move forward as best we can and muddle through the complexity.”

“Okay. I can work with that.” She stilled her nervous hands on her lap. Time to hearken to better days. “Could I take you out sometime?”

“You don’t want me, you said that.” The click of her mouse was that bit too forceful on waking up her monitor. The corner of her mouth twisted south.  Bernie wanted to kiss her just there.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

There was slight tic in her jaw, a broad twitch of the cheek that signaled a grinding of her teeth.  “We haven’t mastered friendship yet; we should probably figure that out before we complicate the matter.”

“Have dinner with me as a friend? Tomorrow night? I’ll cook.”

Serena tapped blindly at her keyboard. “Can’t, I’m due out.”

“Another date?”

“Such as it is.”

Bernie blinked, making sure to focus on her hands so Serena wouldn’t see how upset she was. This was meant to sting. Serena hadn’t earned her title as ‘queen of take-it-to-the-grave grudges’ by happy accident.

“Lucky person to get to spend the evening with you.”

Serena drew in an audibly shaky breath mirrored in Bernie’s lungs.

“Could we not do this? I like you and you don’t have the highest opinion of me. You’ve made that abundantly clear. Can we leave this?”

“I like you, Serena, very much. I know I buggered it up, that I’ve done and said things to cast doubt on that. I would like to make it right if I can.”

“It’s fine.” Serena sniffed and coughed to clear her throat. She still wouldn’t make eye contact with Bernie.  “We can draw a line under it and move on. Friends now. Good enough?” It was obvious that was the best she could expect. It was somewhere to start.

“Okay.”

*

Bernie straddled the first unoccupied bar stool she encountered at Albie’s and dropped her head into her hands.  Dom left his clutch with Zosia and Arthur on the sofa to check on her.

“All right?”

“I could really do with a drink, or three.”  She would gladly obliterate any and all memory of today from her mind. She planned on it.

“On a scale of whiskey to tequila plus the worm, how bad did it go?”

Bernie flipped her unkempt hair back from her face.  “What’s worse the tequila plus the worm?”

“Holding a grudge?”

“A bit.”

Dom signaled the bartender and ordered scotch from the middle shelf. “Just bring us the whole bottle.”

Glass by glass Bernie unloaded the entire silly, sordid account on Dom. Jac’s warning, her first meeting with Serena, the flirting, the banter, the buildup, their first kiss, their disastrous on-call room liaison, and finally today.  Serena had been her almost something all this time. Almost her best friend. Almost her partner in crime. Almost her lover. The loss of what she might have been was crushing.

“She brought me coffee, and she made sure I got all the shifts I preferred. She signed off on my parking spot right out front. She approved my leave so I could help Charlotte move for her pupilage.”

“Somebody loves you,” Dom offered. His sympathy grated. He was wrong; somebody _had_ loved her, maybe. Not anymore.

“Does she usually do that sort of thing?” she asked. Maybe Serena was just that way and nothing of value was lost.

“She does her best to help us all out, but I don’t know if she’d go that far for just anyone.” Bernie rubbed sandy grit from her eyes.

“I asked her out and she turned me down flat. Said that I don’t want her by my own admission, that we should try getting friendship right before we go ‘complicating matters.’” Dom pulled her into a half-hug when her voice began to quiver. She bit her trembling lip and took another drink.

“Have you considered groveling? I hear she’s a sucker for a pair of puppy dog eyes and you’ve got ‘em in spades.”

“I got scared,” Bernie explained as if he hadn’t spoken. “I got scared I might get hurt and so I ran like a bat out of hell. I like her, Dom. I think she might really have been carrying a torch for me.”

“It’s never too late to fix things between you.”

“I really think it might be.” Bernie reflected on the amber liquor in her glass. “I didn’t think it could be that easy. You don’t divorce your husband after an affair and then walk smack into the person you’re meant to be with—except I think I might have done. I think it’s Serena. How did I bugger it up so completely that quickly? Who does that?” She ground the heels of her palms into her eyes.

Dom tossed back the last of her whiskey before she could. Evidently, he thought she’d had enough.  He set her tumbler upside down on the bar. “People do.  It happens all the time. But here’s the thing, if you think Serena’s the one, or even _a_ one, then you owe it to yourself to fight for her, or you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting you didn’t.”

*  
Bernie got as far as texting Serena, to no avail, before giving up the entire affair for lost. Serena had someone else. She would always have someone else.  Bernie was replaceable and replaced.

The next day was a little bit of torture, not entirely owing to Bernie’s persistent hangover.  Serena took on her procedures in theater unless Bernie’s trauma skills were specially required, in which case they operated together. They talked as much as needed and no more, stilted exchanges belied by the ease of their anticipating each other’s next action. They were an ideal partnership in surgery. It was everywhere else they’d gone all wrong.

Serena touched up her hair and makeup in the locker room as they were preparing to go home for the day. Her lipstick was something more prosaic than her most daring shade of red, this one a shimmery pink. Its glossy presence drew the eye and promised laughter and a touch of something sweet. It was playful as she could be. It complimented the rouge coloring the apples of her cheeks.

Bernie stopped in the middle of zipping up her boots to watch her fluff her hair.  Serena caught her watching in the mirror hanging from her locker door. 

For an endless moment, they watched each other.

Bernie buckled first, zipped her boots and stuffed her used trauma scrubs into the laundry return. “Have a good night.”

Serena shut her locker. “I intend to.”

Bernie waited ten minutes after Serena had gone to leave.  It might have been cowardly of her, but she didn’t want to run into Serena with another of her dates tonight.

She had a shockingly fruitful conversation on the phone with Cam on the drive home. He was thinking of coming to Holby to continue his F1 training. He still wanted to be a doctor. He wanted her advice. Her son was coming around. At last, a breakthrough in some area of her life. Maybe some good could still come from this cluster of a year.

Heartened, she decided to treat herself to a hearty meal at favorite Italian restaurant in town.  Bernie had never minded eating by herself. She might even say she preferred it. Nobody to entertain, no pretense to maintain.  Just herself, her food, and her drink.

Bernie was being escorted to her preferred table at Il Cibo when the glint from a familiar necklace caught her attention.  Cast pale golden in the romantic lighting, Serena was sat at a table for two all on her lonesome. She was tapping at her phone.

Bernie indicated the host should wait for her and crossed the cozy bistro to ask after her.  Because she looked sad and Bernie was a fool who wanted to help. Because she looked beautiful and Bernie was a fool who loved her. All had the benefit of being true.

“Why are you here alone?”

Serena glared up at her.  “What are you doing here?”

“This is one of my favorite restaurants. Where’s your date?”

Serena removed a set of eating utensils from the cloth napkin ornately folded on the table and draped it on her lap.

“There’s no date. I decided to treat myself to a nice meal.” So she _had_ said it to hurt Bernie.

“You could have come to mine.”  Bernie was no great shakes in the kitchen, herself, but she would have tried or gone bankrupt ordering in something edible.

“I wanted to be alone. You said it yourself, I sail between liaisons like a trapeze swinger. I figured a change of pace was in order. I’m getting predictable, wouldn’t want to lose my feminine mystique.”

“I-“

“I wanted to be alone,” reiterated Serena, “so I am. Try to contain your disbelief. If you’d prefer the place to yourself, I‘ll go.” She signaled a server. “Could I get the check please?” All there was on her table was an untouched basket of bread and a largely full bottle of wine. Red. She hadn’t got around to ordering her meal.

“Wait. Serena, just wait. We could eat together?” She raced ahead of Serena’s skeptical rebuttals, knowing she wouldn’t have a chance if Serena got a word in edgewise.  “We could get to know each other. It’s neutral territory.”

“I’d say we know each other plenty well.”

“We don’t. We know each other by reputation and that’s, that isn’t the same thing. I judged you based on what I’d heard instead of what I knew and mucked this all up—and hurt you. Let’s try again. No expectations, no preconceived notions, just two women, two friends, who might fancy one another. We could try, can’t we?” Bernie tried to catch her eye. “Serena?”

Serena gestured for the hovering server to leave them.   “The wine list _is_ extensive.” She was grudgingly impressed. Bernie took the opposite chair, sitting down heavily. That was the first hurdle of the night overcome.

“I know. I thought you might like to come here at some point. I’ve lost count of how many times I wanted to ask you.”

“You should have.”

The server brought Bernie a place setting and a glass to share in Serena’s wine despite Bernie’s uneasy protestations. She knew enough not to want to come between Serena and her drink of choice, didn’t want that strike against her as well.

They ordered without consulting each other. It was like being in theater without even the monotony of routine to ferry them along. Serena tore her breadsticks in half and dipped each piece in marinara sauce. She'd consumed just under half the bread basket by the time their entrees arrived. Bernie had gotten a braciola with orecchiette, Serena had got the ossobuco and mushroom polenta. They ate without speaking till the silence grew unbearable. Bernie was about to propose a debate on NHS privatization just to get Serena talking or swearing when the other woman took the plunge.

“Do you ever miss the army?”

“The camaraderie, yes, not so much the constant mortal peril. It wasn't about that for me.” Bernie was a healer with a noble streak. The army had stoked that streak to glowing for its own purposes till it burned out. She only regretted the lives she wouldn’t be present to save.  “Why aren't you the CEO?” Henrik was born to be chief executive, that wasn’t to be disputed, but so was Serena, and Bernie had yet to hear a valid reason why she wasn’t.

“The day the board appoints me CEO is the day Holby City Hospital goes on the chopping block. I’ll gladly retain my position as the woman in the shadows if it keeps _my_ head out of the guillotine when the end comes.”  She took a deep drink of her wine, something she seemed to be avoiding up to now. “The truth is, if I want my career to flourish, I'll have to seek pastures new. There’s only one top spot at Holby City Hospital and it belongs to Henrik, so I’ve been putting out feelers to see what’s out there.”  She was resolute. Bernie saw the future she wanted sliding from her grasp.

“I don't want you to go.”

Serena skewered a slice of carrot and gave it slow, thorough chew. It was thoughtful, meticulous Serena she was getting tonight.

“I would say the same about you. You have plenty to offer Holby.”

“I wasn't speaking professionally.”

Serena took another generous sip and changed the subject.

“Sometime last year, there was a patient on AAU, presenting with—how to put it—chronic, never-ending horniness, to quote the woman herself. Totally interfered with her reasoning. No impulse control. She was so overcome that after being admitted she stole a set of scrubs from the supply closet and posed as a doctor in order to sneak out of the hospital for a rendezvous with her lover.”

“She didn't.”

“Oh no, she did, and it gets better.”

“Did she repel down the side of the building?” It wouldn’t have been the most outlandish thing Bernie had heard to happen at Holby.

“No, and it's a good thing she didn't. When it comes to falling, sometimes I think this hospital is cursed. In any event, she ran into an agency nurse who mistook her for an actual doctor and asked her to check in on an ailing patient.”

“What did she do?”

“Claimed she was a late starter F1 in need of a consultant to guide her and tried to do a runner! 67 years old if she was a day.”

Bernie guffawed around a robust bite of orecchiette pasta.  “Then what happened?”

“Fletch caught wind of the whole fiasco and between the two of us we shut her daring escape right down. Back to bed with a call down to psych for good measure.”

“Never a dull moment, is it?” Bernie loved working AAU and heading up the trauma unit. Amid the bustle and chaos, that’s where she belonged. She _and_ Serena.

“Never dull for long, no. It's why I like it.”  Serena folded her arms on the table, behind her dish. “You see, I used to prefer electives. They had an established order, they were predictable. Then, I made a botched admin call and got busted down to AAU because my call killed someone. I didn't intend to stay. I was going to play the game and bide my time until I could get back into Hanssen’s good graces and back to Keller.  Never happened.  That was years ago. I can't see myself anyplace else now. Every other ward is too slow. The patients on AAU need my skills far more than someone in for a routine appendectomy. Whatever you might think of me, I am a world-class surgeon. My time, my effort is priceless, and I do not let it go to waste.”

Bernie’s chewing slowed. This monologue was for her.

“If I pursue someone, Bernie, it's because they've given me reason to believe my interest is welcome. If I misread you, repeatedly, I’m sorry, but let me be clear: You don't get to look down on the way I conduct my affairs and then blindside me halfway across town to tell me you like me anyway. I've been exactly who I am all along. No front, no façade, no sheep in wolf's clothing. I've held nothing back.  Whatever secret gooey chocolate center you're looking for under the hard candy exterior doesn't exist. You are wasting your time.  That's your prerogative, you're welcome to it, but don't ever think you get the privilege of wasting mine.”

Bernie swallowed and her previously delectable grilled pork tasted of bitter ash. There was the ice queen. She left Bernie shivering.

“I’ll swap you half my braciola for your ossobuco.” Serena turned her dish to the untouched portion of her main course.

“Help yourself.”

“I'm doing my best.”  She took a portion of Serena’s mushroom polenta and covered it with the veal shanks and vegetables, sure she wouldn’t be able to taste that either yet biding her time. “I so want to commit to you, Serena. Do you want that?” Serena nibbled on the slice of braciola she’d liberated from Bernie’s plate and didn’t answer. “I wanted to be your date at the donor gala that night.  I imagined going with you to the next one. I'd wear a suit and let you escort me in on your arm.”

“With me in that dress?”Serena’s raised eyebrow was damningly amused.  There was no denying it now.

“I daydream about peeling you out of that dress. I was sure you wore it to tempt me.”

“Are you quite sure I didn't?”

She stroked the back of Serena’s hand. “Take me home, Serena.”

Serena pulled her hands back to her side of the table and sat them in her lap.

“That isn’t a good idea. We agreed.”  Bernie had agreed; Serena had acquiesced. They weren’t exactly the same thing.

“Are you seeing anyone right now?” Bernie asked her.

“No.”

“Angus?”

“Not anymore, we decided it wasn’t going anywhere and ended things.”

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t got trauma groupies banging down your door.” She’d had offers. Her reasons for refusing Serena initially still applied. Plus, there were additional considerations…

“I wasn’t looking. I’ve had my eye on someone since I first arrived. Haven’t been of a mind to settle for anyone else.” Bernie sat her hands on in the middle of the table, palms up. They were there for Serena to hold if she trusted herself to.  “I don’t know what you heard when I said what it was I said. I wasn’t being honest, I was…panicking and just talking rubbish.” Serena was staring at her hands.  “I know you’ve got a reputation for being a love ‘em and leave ‘em type, but I’ve never heard anything about you being callous and I shouldn’t have implied you would be.  I’m sorry I hurt you, Serena.”

“We all say things in the heat of the moment that can be…hurtful.  It’s forgotten.”  Serena was still staring.

“See, I don’t think it is. That’s why you’ve been avoiding me. Because I hit you someplace you’re sensitive. But I don’t want you to avoid me anymore. I don’t want us to be strangers. I don’t want you to stop flirting with me and inviting me into dark rooms to kiss me.”

Serena balked, “That was only twice!”  

“I haven’t stopped thinking about those kisses, or about you undressing me in the on-call room.” She walked her fingers over the table to Serena’s side. “I want that again. I want you.” She offered Serena her hand. “Take me home?”

Serena took her hand and called for the check.

*

They drove Bernie’s car to her apartment since she knew the way and it was closer. Bernie tried not to think it was so Serena could sneak off in the night and call a taxi, leaving none of herself behind. She had to have faith in Serena; it was her lack of it that had got them here in the first place.

Her plan hit a snag as soon as they got out of the car. Serena hesitated at the front steps where Bernie was digging around in her pockets for her key.

“Do you want to come upstairs?”

Serena retreated down a step. Her eyes were wide as the dinner plates they’d left half full.

“I should…get home.”

Bernie tried not to panic.  There would be other nights. Now she knew Serena wanted this, wanted her she could be patient. She swore she would make it true.

“Do you have to? I have Shiraz. I bought it with you in mind.” When Serena wasn’t speaking to her, she’d stocked up on all the treats she knew the other woman liked. She’d chickened out on giving her any of it. It was all just gathering dust.

Serena joined her at the door. They had to move aside to let another tenant out of the building. They stayed close and not only for warmth.

“If you’d said you had Shiraz, I’d have made a nuisance of myself much sooner.”

Bernie shrugged. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t mentioned it. Resisting Serena Campbell in proximity to her own bed would have been a profound test of Bernie’s willpower she wasn’t sure she’d have passed. “All that matters is you’re here now. Come up for a drink?”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

They held hands all the way upstairs, through Serena’s complaints about the out-of-order lift and Bernie’s ‘interesting’ neighbors, through the front door till they had to separate to shuck their coats and scarves. Serena was more of a stickler about shoes off indoors and they ended up padding barefoot to the kitchen.

“You really have Shiraz? I thought that was a line.”

“I hedged my bets.”

Bernie brought out her spotty wineglasses and—she hoped—above standard wine. If Serena objected to either, she kept it to herself. They toasted to something, Bernie’s pulse was thumping too loudly in her ears to hear what Serena said before they clinked glasses.

They spent an hour on the couch talking, filling each other in on all they’d missed while apart. Serena glossed over her intervening interludes. Bernie glossed over how miserable she’d been without her friend. She mentioned Cameron and their tentative steps to reconciliation taken just tonight. She missed Charlotte but Serena assured her she’d come around. Elinor was out in the world being fiercely rebellious, entirely in her mother’s image, unbeknownst to her. They toasted to being young. They toasted to love, and each other.

“Touch me.” Bernie was vibrating with anticipation. She had waited the better part of a year to reach this point. She was done resisting, she only wanted to give in.

Serena skimmed her lips over Bernie’s. She murmured Serena’s name and braced herself on Serena’s knees, squirming to get closer. She’d wanted this for such a long time. Serena withdrew abruptly and scooted off down the couch. She tugged at the hem of her blouse and cardigan.

“It’s getting late.”

“You’ve been forward all this time and now I’m giving you the go-ahead you’re running away.”

Serena scowled. “You said you didn’t want this with me and I told you I respect that. You should have anything you want.”

“I want you.”

“You want someone.  Could be I’m just in the right place at the right time.”

Bernie eased closer, worried she might spook Serena into leaving entirely. This was how it had been all along, Serena edging closer and Bernie letting her, simply to dart away when she drew within striking distance. Anybody would be chary after that.

“You’re wrong.  I know my own mind.”

“Do you? That isn’t the impression I’ve gotten.” The rollercoaster they’d been on since the day they’d met had left a scar.

“I’m sorry.”

Serena crossed her arms.  “Stop apologizing. It doesn’t help.”

“I won’t stop apologizing until you hear me out. Fleur said you like to see a woman shine. You make me shine.  You look after me and make me laugh. You respect my boundaries and try to help me even after I’ve hurt you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Saying it doesn’t change the fact that you closed off from me after, after the on-call room.” There was a momentary flash of pain Bernie didn’t miss. Bernie freed one of Serena’s hands from her defensive posture and took it between hers. Serena watched her from beneath lowered lashes.

“It would have been better if we hadn’t kissed. I wouldn’t be able to miss it as much as I do if I…if I had no idea what I was missing. But then I did and you didn’t want it or me.  I like you—very much, in fact—and all of it would have hurt that little bit less if I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for a challenge, I was looking for a friend and I gained both and then lost them in a blink.”

“I’m not lost.” She stroked the back of her fingers over Serena’s cheek.  “I’m not going anyplace. I’m still yours for the taking if you still want me.”  _Please want me._

“Sure you won’t change your mind afterward?” she asked as if joking but Bernie knew this was the greatest hurdle they’d have to overcome. Bernie couldn’t run again; Serena wouldn’t be waiting for her to come back if she did.

“I won’t change my mind.”

“No telling tales out of school?”  Bernie had eventually realized that Serena gained the reputation she had because her lovers tended to talk and talk and talk at length about their liaisons.  Bernie wasn’t interested in exposing her personal affairs for all to see. Her divorce had given her her fill of private exposure.

“No telling anyone we don’t want to know.” She coaxed Serena into her arms. She fit nicely as if the dip in her waist was made to accommodate Bernie.

“Good.” Serena twined her fingers in Bernie’s hair. She was obsessed with Bernie’s hair, never missed the opportunity to get her hands in it when she could.  Bernie sighed. She was still aflutter. “Call me soft-hearted, but I’d like to enjoy having you all to myself before I have to answer to the grapevine or the dreaded HR department.”

“I like that idea. Want to be my naughty little secret for now, Ms. Campbell?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Serena rubbed the tip of her nose against Bernie’s in a gesture so tender Bernie’s heart ached. She loved Serena. She hoped Serena loved her. “I’ve missed you,” Bernie said.

“I’ve missed you too.”

Bernie rubbed her fingers down Serena’s back.  “What do you say we adjourn to bed?”

“At last.”

 

Serena took her time undressing Bernie in the bedroom. For every inch of skin exposed she kissed Bernie. Her lips, the moles on her neck, the angles of her collarbones. She slipped behind Bernie to unbutton her shirt and blazed a path of biting kissing from her jaw to her shoulder as she dragged the shirt down Bernie’s arms.

Bernie wanted to kiss her back, to return the favor and see Serena finally as she was meant to be seen, in nothing but skin.  Serena stopped her, rubbed her lips behind her ear to disarm her out of hand.

“Let me play this my way?”

“Okay.”

Serena scraped her teeth along the shell of her ear. Serena used light touches to explore her chest and stomach. A palm stroked down the column of her neck, the span of long, elegant fingers grazed the modest curve of Bernie’s sensitive breasts.

She dipped into Bernie’s navel. Grabbed her hips.  Kissed a line of wet heat from the nape of her neck down her back. She divested Bernie of her bra without ceremony, leaving her in only her signature black skinny jeans. Bernie shuddered, sensitive as an exposed nerve.

“Serena…”

“Patience, darling.”

Fabric rustled behind her and Serena returned to her, bare skin and fine hair nestled between her legs. The velvety slide of skin made goose pimples leap across her skin. She nudged a knee between Bernie’s legs and loosed the button of her denims to slide a hand inside her underwear. Her knees shook and she reached behind her for something to hold onto, for Serena.

“I fantasized for months about having you like this.”

“Where?”

“The locker room. The supply closet. Our office with the blinds open knowing you’d have to be so quiet.”

Serena pressed her knee against Bernie’s aching heat, eliciting a chest deep moan.  Bernie had fantasized about having Serena _everywhere_. She hadn’t dreamed big enough.

Bernie spun around to kiss Serena properly. She couldn’t wait anymore. She’d been waiting since the day they met.  She lunged at Serena to kiss her, hands clutching at her cheeks.

“You can have me anywhere, but I need you now.”

With Serena’s help, and hindrance (her mouth was a profound distraction), Bernie got out of her jeans and her underwear. They were both naked, finally. Muscle and spotted skin. Cesarean scars and body hair. None of it was remarkable and all of it was fine.  Bernie was going to kiss Serena all over, but not if Serena got there first.

Serena walked them toward the bed. They crawled into the middle of the mattress.  It’d be a pity to fall off.

Bernie straddled Serena, her back propped against her bent knees.

“You have complete control.”

Bernie countered, “I prefer to share.”

“That’s why we work together so well. I get to be bossy-“

“And you get to boss me around?”  Serena’s controlling tendencies were the stuff of Holby myth and legend. Bernie had met worse in the forces.

“I prefer to think of it as delegating.” Serena’s hands smoothed up and down Bernie’s sides. “On the off-chance you have concerns, I have been tested and I am free and clear on all counts.”

“I didn’t have any, but good to know, thanks. Same here.”

“Wonderful news.” She relocated her hands to Bernie’s knees and dragged her palms up Bernie’s inner thighs. “I’m going to eat you up.”

“Not if I do you first.” Bernie wriggled her eyebrows.

“You think you’re so funny.”

Bernie kissed Serena’s lips, her chin, the creases between her brows, and the smattering of silver at her hairline. “ _You_ think I’m funny.”

Serena scrunched her nose. “I do, regrettably.” She gave Bernie’s backside an affectionate pat.  “Must be the packaging, not the delivery.”

“I’ll show you delivery.” Bernie cradled Serena’s face in her hands and kissed her till she forgot what she was laughing about.  Serena should be kissed at all times and Bernie was gunning for the privilege.

Serena nudged her backward.

“I want to see you.” She pressed Bernie’s legs apart till she felt a delicious stretch in her hips. “Let me see you.”

Bernie braced herself on Serena’s knees and let Serena look. She felt this exposed whenever Serena laid eyes on her, but this was the first time she was exposed as she felt.

Chances were better than middling Bernie would have come no matter what Serena did. She was nevertheless thrilled to learn Serena was as good as her legend. Her fingers were as nimble as she was stunning. She was every bit as meticulous a lover as she was a surgeon.

Serena grew absorbed with Bernie’s expression as she explored Bernie’s body. Fingertips down her neck. Nails skimming her collarbones, leaving faint pink welts all over Bernie’s small breasts. She circled Bernie’s taut nipples solely to watch her twitch. Her eyes flitted from Bernie’s face to the heat between her legs. Serena’s touch followed the path her eyes had trod first. Bernie’s stomach flexed. Her hips writhed.

Serena rubbed circles inside Bernie’s her thighs, inching up toward her core. Bernie tried her hardest to keep still. Serena knew already how much Bernie wanted this. Her arousal had rendered her slick to Serena’s fingertips. The scent of it hung heavy in the air.

“Please.”

Serena stroked a finger over her clit. Bernie gasped.

Serena steadied her with one hand and with the other explored Bernie’s slick, swollen flesh till she was satisfied. Aching, Bernie angled her hips in the hope Serena would take the hint.

Tutting in mock disappointment at Bernie’s impatience, Serena complied. A pair of long, deft fingers sank into Bernie in one delicious, satisfying slide. The reality of Serena inside her was beyond any of her fantasies. She fluttered around her, groaned deep at how good it was. So good.

Serena crooked her fingers, dragging them out of her to a whimper and pressing them in to a moan. Bernie panted and grabbed her wrist.

“All right?”

“Uh huh. ‘S good.” Too good. She was going to be finished in minutes at this rate.

 “Just good?” Serena sucked a mark high on the side of Bernie’s neck.  “Wait till you I get you back to mine. I have so much I want us to try, so many things I want show you.”

Bernie looped her arms over Serena’s shoulders for leverage.

“Bet your arsenal is…impressive.”

“Almost as impressive as me.”

“And so modest.”

Serena sped up the pace of her hand, working her fingers inside Bernie a little bit faster, curling her fingers just so to hit that spot that stole Bernie’s breath.

“Oh...”

Serena peppered kisses along the angle of Bernie’s jaw. Bernie held back a whine, buried a hand in Serena’s hair to keep her mouth right there. Serena nibbled at her earlobe and murmured, low and commanding, “Don’t hold back. Let me hear you.”

Bernie shivered at her hot breath on her skin. Her nipples tightened, her cunt throbbed.

“Now,” Serena growled.

Bernie’s hips jerked.  “Don’t stop,” she murmured.

“More. Louder.”

“Please.” Bernie voice cracked. “Please, god, Serena, don’t stop.”

Serena lowered her head to catch one tight peak in her mouth, dragged Bernie in close to press another finger inside of her. Bernie’s mouth dropped open. Her legs shook.

“There, there.”

She angled Serena’s hand right where she wanted it and sank down onto her fingers again and again until she’d wrung herself dry and could stand no more.

Pushing her hand from between her legs, she collapsed against Serena and buried her face in the crook of her neck.

“God, Serena…”

“I’m usually only called ‘god’ in theater. I much prefer this context.”

Bernie sputtered between gales of laughter. Serena swept Bernie’s hair up from her nape. She shivered in the open air. They’d lost the duvet at some point and only had each other for warmth.           

“Just give me a minute. My stamina isn’t what it was.” Regular sex therapy hadn’t been a physician-approved part of her physio regimen.

Serena sketched her fingertips up the back of Bernie’s arms and across her shoulders.  “Not to worry, we’ll build that up again.”

“I’d better if I want to keep up with you.”

“You will. You’re just my speed.” Serena ran a thumb along her lower lip. Her eyes were blown wide with desire; they were warm with affection.  Bernie smiled. The signs had been there; she only had to believe them.

“I just can’t get enough of you. What was I thinking letting you get away?”

Serena silenced her self-recrimination with a languid kiss. What good was questioning her mistakes when she was correcting them right now? Bernie kissed her twice, three times, unwilling to part from her until she had to.

“I love kissing you.”

“There’s more where that comes from,” Serena replied, eyebrows quirked in invitation.

“I bet there is.” Bernie shifted backward to stroke her hand up Serena’s sternum to the hollow of her throat. She licked the notches of her clavicles, tasted the sweat pooling right around there.  Serena arched her head back with a hum, eyes shut and a smile on her lips. Bernie loved her more than ever. “Aren’t I meant to be shagging you stupid?” Serena settled her hands on Bernie’s hips.

“Are you?  Time is ticking and you’ve quite a row to hoe if you’re meaning to go that far. Get on it, Major.”

Bernie shot off a mock salute.  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

Bernie made a pilgrimage to every part of Serena she had wanted to touch since well before their first kiss. Her lips. Her ears. Her neck. Her neck again. Those collarbones. Her graceful shoulders. Her breasts—she stayed there, lingering, worshipful, lapping at her nipples till they grew taut and Serena pleaded through bitten lips. Her stomach. Her hips (she sank her nails into them, wanted Serena bent over their desk while she took her from behind as she’d dreamed about once). Her thighs her thighs her thighs and the thatch of dark hair between them. Bernie kissed her just there.

“I am never going to get over you.”

Serena laughed her rare breathless laugh and threw an arm over her face.  “I’ve been saying that since June.”

Bernie took a nip of Serena’s hip. “You’re sure of yourself.” She’d been right to be so from the start.

Serena reached down for her and they found each other’s hands. “I hoped, that’s all. Now please, I am begging you not to stop now.”

Bernie sucked a lasting mark on her upper thigh and got down to business.

Serena knew what she needed; she directed Bernie like a commander, guided her like a teacher. Three fingers curled her toes. Four arched her back. Firm, relentless pressure inside her coupled with slow, deliberate licks around her clit made her come with a ragged shout that was already Bernie’s favorite sound. That was the first time.

The second time their hands worked together to bring her to a shattering climax that left their fingers dripping wet entwined.

The third time Bernie relied entirely on the agility of her lips and tongue.

Serena grew more vocal every round. Encouraging, even. She begged and squirmed and _demanded_ what she wanted. She dug her fingers into Bernie’s shoulders and moaned her name, urgent, urgent. _Please yes._ Her heels dug into Bernie’s back. She rocked up into the pointed thrusting of Bernie’s tongue. Sobs punched out of her chest whenever Bernie’s nose butted her hypersensitive clit. She hung on and held back until Bernie fluttered the tip of her tongue under the sensitive bundle of nerves and shoved her over the edge all at once with a guttural cry.

Serena collapsed boneless onto the bed sheets, at last. Bernie wiped her chin and lapped up the slickness coating her lips.  She nuzzled her face into Serena’s soft stomach. Her abdominal muscles were still rippling, hyperactive after her last orgasm. Serena carded her trembling fingers through Bernie’s hair. They could get used to this.

“Planning on sticking around now you’ve got me?” asked Bernie once the sweat on her skin had started to cool and her heart had returned to a normal rhythm.

“Is that an invitation?”

“For as long as you want it.” She hugged Serena’s waist. “I like you in my bed.”

“Then, I’ll stay.”

Bernie gathered her nerve. She needed honesty and needed to be honest. She wanted Serena but she needed Serena to want her equally as much.

“Does that mean I’m more than another notch in your bedpost?”

Serena’s laughter shook them both. Bernie kissed the silky skin above her belly button.

“Very much the last notch, darling. Top notch, even.”

“So soppy, Ms. Campbell. I _must_ be good.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.” Serena brushed Bernie’s fringe out of her eyes signaling Bernie to look up at her.  “Even if you are incredible, fantastic, and fearless.” She thumbed Bernie’s cheek. “I adore you, Bernie.”

“I adore you.” Bernie army crawled up Serena’s body to kiss her. Though her rampant giggling made it a trial, Bernie didn’t mind a bit.

It wasn’t love, not today, not by the same name. But Bernie could wait. She would wait for Serena Wendy Campbell for eternity, if need be. That was love.

* * *

 

The holidays approached at the speed of light and soon it was time for the Christmas Eve shift handover.  Serena pointed out the stack of charts in need of reviewing before certain patients could be discharged to make room for the inevitable holiday trauma cases. Ric groaned.  None of them enjoyed admin but some of them loathed it. Ric and Bernie were equals in that, for all that he bested her in the task.

“Have fun.”

“Not likely.” He slipped into Serena’s chair and made himself at home. “What’s on the agenda tonight? Another first date?” A joke that had gotten old roughly three years ago.

“I’m out of the first date game for the foreseeable future. I’m off to Bernie’s for the evening.”

Ric crossed his arms, the smug git.  “What’s that make, two months now?”

“And going strong.  Try not to make too much merry without me.”

“I think I should be telling you that.”

“Could be. Goodnight, Eric.”

He snorted. “Give my best to Bernie.”

“Will do.”

Serena’s contented singing followed her right out the door. There was a beautiful blonde waiting for her at home and tomorrow there’d be a house full of family to help make the Yuletide gay. There was no place else Serena wanted to be.

_A beautiful sight_

_We’re happy tonight_

_Walking in a winter wonderland_

**Author's Note:**

> First posted [here](https://dryandsweet.tumblr.com/post/181524499790/no-place-for-beginners-or-sensitive-hearts)


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